I’ve had theories as to how they were going to fix Dean all season long, but I have to say this episode dealt me surprise after surprise.

We start out this episode with a ranting Sam giving all the reasons they should do whatever they can to save Dean, but with Cas warning about the consequences about doing that. I know they will figure something out (they always do), but I’m going to agree a little with Cas here. Sam and Dean don’t always make the wisest decisions about each other.

First Life Lesson of the Night

Next we see Dean most assuredly not alright.

Nope you’re not good at all Dean. If any of you wake up like this in the mornings– you are also very far from good. [Insert “The More you Know” Rainbow].

Dean’s day just keeps getting better too. He starts off by calling a murdered girl a whore (which he totally missed the opportunity to make a comment about the Whore of Babylon) and the rounds it out by trying to run off the hunter that called him in on the case in the first place. His charm gets even better in a minute. When he goes to interview the dead girls parents he not only makes them so mad that the dad punches him repeatedly in the face, he also pulls a gun on the dad AND the son. Hunter of the Year right here. He did find out the location of the vampire nest though so there’s that.

Rowena doesn’t fall for bluffs

Evidently Crowley can’t find another witch for them (why has that not been asked yet?) so they are stuck with Rowena. She strong arms them into promising her freedom and the Codex in exchange for performing the spell. I’m sure this is going to go perfectly.

She reads the spell out loud telling Sam and Cas the three ingredients she’ll need to do the spell. It turns out that Dr. Seuss invented the language it was written in and that they need the forbidden fruit, the golden calf and the thing Rowena loves. A little bit of a challenging shopping list.

She looks pretty fantastic for someone chained up in a nasty dungeon-y place.

She once again establishes that she’s the worst mother ever and doesn’t love Crowley, but Cas does read her mind and finds out that she did love a boy named Oscar. After Sam gets a phone call from the Hunter that Dean was a douche to he gets Cas to go get the ingredients for the spell while he goes to find Dean.

Dean is Passing the Point of No Return

Dean makes it to the cabin where the vampires are holed up and kills one immediately then walks in to find Red Shirt Hunter Dude trapped with a knife to his throat. First off Dean is scary in this scene with his lack of desire to try to save a fellow hunter. Secondly I feel like any other hunter would have escaped that vampire while he was waiving that knife all around. So I don’t agree with the fact that Dean proceeds to mock the vampire into killing the guy, but I do think that someone with better instincts would have gotten out of the way so Dean could have chopped the bad guy’s head off. Dean cuts the hostage loose before leaving her with multiple dead bodies, but I was surprised that he didn’t check to make sure she hadn’t been turned before leaving. I half expected him to chop her head off just to be safe.

Dean may have left calmly, but everything he just did hit him hard once he got back to the hotel room as was evidenced by his temper tantrum.

If anyone can sexily destroy a seedy hotel room though it’s this guy.

The Bro Love is Strong with Crowley

So Sam just tried to kill Crowley with the help of his POS mother yet all Castiel has to do to get him to help Dean is ask nicely. That’s it and all of a sudden Crowley is back with the fruit from the tree and a piece of the Golden Calf. These boys are too close to let a little attempted murder to bother them.

I, along with everyone else, love Castiel’s literal take on everything.

Now we know things are bad

Sam finds Dean’s hotel room, but he’s gone and he left a note with the keys to the Impala saying simply, “She’s all yours.” You know that Dean is gone when he gives away the Impala. You can see how much it freaks out Sam as well to see this casual note along with the trashed hotel room.

We cut to Dean summoning something that looks dangerous and turns out to be Death. Death is one of my favorite characters. He plays by his own rules. He helped the boys beat Lucifer, but he’s not really on their side.Dean asks Death to kill him and when he refuses he asks Death to remove it (I might would have asked those things in the opposite order). Death tells Dean that he can take the Mark away if he agrees to pass it on to someone else. Why you ask? Because of course the Mark isn’t just a curse, it’s also a key to a prison that holds back “The Darkness.” That not only sounds ominous, but also sounds like the writers are running out of names for their bad guys.

Dean agrees to Death’s other deal then and calls Sam so he’ll come and meet him for one final goodbye.

Crowley is still a sad lonely little boy

Crowley is still on the hunt for something that Rowena loves, but we find out that the diner owner he was talking to last week was actually the one person that Rowena loves. So by bringing him to her to murder he’s really just happy he’s found a way to hurt her. She lied to Castiel about Oscar and pretended like he was long dead when she knew he was immortal and hanging around somewhere. So her freedom must not have meant that much too her– until she was almost made to look weak in front of her son.

Poor Crowley.

Now Rowena has everything she needs to make the spell work and Sam doesn’t know that they are performing the spell as he’s meeting Dean.

Sam and Dean still like to fight

Sam shows up and right off the bat argues with Dean over his decision. He thinks that Dean is going to go off to space with Death and leave him all alone. However, Dean’s next statement surprised and shocked me.

The thought of Dean killing Sam is so alien to me I can’t wrap my head around it and I mostly watched the rest of the episode with my mouth open unsure of how this was going to work. Also here’s an image of Dean chilling in Space like Death wanted him to:

Dean’s thought process is that Sam won’t let Dean live wherever Death has planned so Sam has to die so that Dean can live forever alone in peace. Ummm no Dean. I get what you’re saying, but no. Sam begs with him, argues with him, and then finishes it off with a fist fight. . .as brothers do.

I love so many things about this. Sam got into a fight with crazy Dean knowing that when it went too far that he could cry Uncle and get him to stop. They also have a thorough discussion of good and evil. This is something that I feel like the writers have been dancing around for a while. The boys were obviously good when this show started, but after it all are they still good? Should they be one of the monsters hunters hunt?

Sam finally agrees to let Dean kill him though. Before he completely surrenders he gives him pictures of their family as reminders of what good and love really are. It’s at this moment we see something break in Dean, but I’m still not sure how Dean can get out of killing Sam. Something I’ve worried about since he originally took the Mark.

He reaches up to bring Death’s blade down onto Sam and keeps swinging around, stabbing Death in the chest with it. Death’s blade was established as the only thing that could kill Death way back when during the Apocalypse. So now Dean has killed Death for some reason (well to save Sam, but he’s the one that called Death in the first place) and he doesn’t quite seem to know what to do next.

RIP Death. You will be missed.

As he’s trying to figure out what their next move should be Rowena finishes the spell and successfully manages to remove the Mark from Dean’s arm. The only down side to this development is that Rowena is now free and appears to have taken control of Castiel and sent him to kill Crowley.

Taking a cue from the Sopranos it cuts to black before we know if Cas goes through with it or not.

Oh yeah that too

Oh yeah “The Darkness” thing that Death was going on about now seems to be free and not wasting any time taking over the world. Ooops. I’m sure it’ll be all OK right? At least Death is dead so no one can die until a new Death takes over. . .

The first half of this season of Supernatural felt wrong. The idea that Sam abandoned Dean in Purgatory and never even tried to look for him. Yeah that doesn’t fly with me. I can understand that Dean befriended a vampire and that Sam’s not cool with that. After all Dean did kill Amy Pond (one of their writers must be a serious Doctor Who fan) just because she might kill again someday so it’s understandable that Sam isn’t cool with Dean having a vampire friend.

I really don’t think that this season had a good episode until LARP and the Real Girl just because of all the drama going on with Sam. Don’t get me wrong. Dean was getting it done. He was having flashbacks about how much Purgatory sucked, dealing with his heartbreak over leaving Castiel behind, dealing with the feelings of loyalty to his vampire friend Benny and mostly just being his normal awesome self.

Sam however seems bummed that Dean has shown back up. Instead of seeing Sam relieved that his brother has escaped a torturous place he seems pretty bummed out that he can’t continue his life without hunting. Seriously? Dean is not some annoying step child that Sam has to take care of that he’s suddenly gotten custody of. Sam gave up college to hunt with Dean. Sam has sacrificed himself time and time again to save the world (including some unfortunate demon’s blood/sex choices) so I don’t care what has happened: Sam wouldn’t bail on Dean or Kevin.

Speaking of Kevin Sam just left him to hang out with Crowley? Really? He never once checked his voicemails or wondered if there was something he could do to help this young kid that they have guided since his life turned upside down? Once again I say no.

So here’s my theory: Sam had some kind of meltdown shortly after Dean got sucked into Purgatory and his whole life with Amelia and the dog didn’t really happen.

I know other people have thrown this out too, but after going back and rewatching some of the early episodes from season 8 this just seems to make more and more sense.

Support:

Sam wouldn’t abandon Dean. Ever.

Sam wouldn’t leave Kevin with Crowley

Sam seems to feel really guilty when he hears Kevin’s voicemails asking for help

Sam has always wanted a dog and a normal love life and very conveniently got both of these

His flash backs have an eerie quality to them. Like they are too perfect.

There are inconsistencies with the Amelia story line. When Dean comes back we see Sam leaving Amelia and Riot while they are sleeping (with a mysterious figure seen watching him), but then we see him leaving her because her not dead husband showed back up. So which is it? Sam left because Dean was back or because Don was back?

Dean never meets Amelia. Sam meets Benny, they talk about her, but no meetings between the two.

Sam is somewhat sad when he chooses to stay with Dean, but is not as sad as when he lost Jess, or Ruby (and he even had betrayal and anger to help him get over Ruby

The harder stuff to explain away:

Sam has Amelia’s number in his phone (supposedly)

Dean comments on the dog smell in the Impala when Sam meets him

He has a rendezvous with Amelia when Dean sends him a fake text saying she’s in trouble that definitely seems pretty real

The scenes that are of Amelia alone. Usually imaginary people aren’t seen alone

So why would Sam have an imaginary girlfriend? Manti Te’o made it look cool? OK maybe not.

Option 1 is that he’s been through a lot. He lost his mom and his dad, he’s died, lost Dean to hell for a while, gotten addicted to demon’s blood, been possessed by Lucifer, gone to hell himself, gone completely insane, lost Bobby, and then lost Dean again. Just to name a few things. So it’s understandable that he could lose his mind again. So maybe he just went kinda crazy and then started to get back on track once Dean showed up again. I don’t like this theory too much though because that’s not much better than what was spelled out to us.

Option 2 is that Naomi is screwing with him. We know that Naomi is messing with Cas and all of his memories so I don’t think it’s that far off track that she would do the same with Sam. Perhaps trying to figure out how to regain control of Heaven again or to find out all of the Winchester secrets so when she brought Castiel back from Purgatory she would know how to control him best. Who knows maybe she just thought it’d be fun to stick her crazy eyeball saw into him. I like this better. The angels are known for their love of messing with people or other angels to achieve their goals and torturing Sam for a year and making up a cover story complete with memories would be no big deal.

Option 3 Crowley created a reality for Sam like he did for Kevin with demons around directing Sam. Maybe he really did meet Amelia and then when Crowley realized that Sam had lowered his guard, that he wasn’t hunting anymore so he had Amelia possessed and kept her close to him to make sure Sam stayed out of his way. The only way I see this working is if it’s combined with option 1. Because I think he’d have to be crazy to not notice a ton of demons hanging around. Who knows though, Kevin might have been fooled if he hadn’t known Sam and Dean so well to know when they were being faked.

No matter what the real deal is I hope that Sam’s year is explained better in season 9 and I most definitely hope that Amelia doesn’t come back. Unless it’s to die a horrible death to never appear again.

First was the symbol for Metatron, which is just reminiscent of the WoT symbol, but then they brought it home with this:

Which made me rewind to verify that it actually said that. Finally they had Metatron question Dean about whether shutting the gates of Hell was really the way to go. Therefore I’m figuring that they will come to the same conclusion that Rand did that Hell/evil needs to be present in the world so that the world has balance and that too much of either side is bad. This seemed like it was screamed at us last night so surely I’m not the only person who noticed. Thoughts?

I am a hardcore fan of “Supernatural .” I’ve watched all seasons numerous times and heaven help you if I find out you’ve never seen this show because I will seriously hound you until you become as addicted as I am. So when I say that season Gr8 of “Supernatural” (as it has been dubbed) hasn’t always lived up to the hype know that it is hard for me to say. However the episodes from “LARP and the Real Girl” (who doesn’t love Felicia Day?) to the finale episode “Sacrifice” went a long way to redeem the season. These episodes got the brothers back on track to what they needed to be doing which is of course supporting each other with an insane amount of trust and devotion while risking everything to save people’s lives.

Last week’s episode “Clip Show” ended with Crowley (Mark Sheppard) threatening to undo all the good that Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) had ever accomplished unless they gave up the Trials to close the gates of Hell. The viewer was left to wonder how they will get out of this quandary. The Trials are killing Sam, but if the gates of Hell can be closed then Crowley can’t hurt anyone. However, who will they lose before they can complete the third trial.

This looked to be a way out for the boys. There is no way that they would be able to close the gates of Hell. If they did there would be very few bad guys left and people need Hell. There was also a ton of foreshadowing in “The Great Escapist” a few weeks ago if you knew what to look for. I talk about that more here.

“Sacrifice” doesn’t feel rushed at the beginning of the episode, but a lot definitely happens in the first half of the show. The boys save Sherriff Jody Mills (Kim Rhodes), who we haven’t seen much since Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver) died, from Crowley by coming to an agreement to end the trials and give up the demon tablet. They have a meeting with Crowley at Bobby’s place and Dean manages to pack so much emotion into his face in those few moments looking around at the shells of cars that all the pain the boys felt over losing their father figure come rushing back. The boys look defeated. Trapped. They have to give up to save everyone. Right?

Well Crowley should have realized by now that nobody puts Dean in a corner.

The boys always do their best when all seems hopeless and they prove it again by tricking Crowley int a pair of Devil’s Trap cuffs. I love that Crowley thought that he could intimidate Dean by punching him and the look on Crowley’s face when Dean punched him back was great. This is what I have loved about the second half of the season. The boys are working together.

Sam and Dean seem to have taken all the precautions this time around. Crowley’s chained up in an abandoned church with devil traps everywhere and it looks like they will actually pull it off. The third trial: curing a demon. They are going to win and will bring Crowley to his knees. So of course enter Castiel (Misha Collins) stage left.

I’m actually really excited that Cas actually came to Dean for help. He’s been working with Metatron (Curtis Armstrong) in the subplot since “Clip Show” which has seemed off from the get-go. He just seems like a creeper. You know that one teacher or professor that you had that you never went to during office hours no matter how confused you were in class. That’s Metatron. Just off. Even though Castiel should have run Metatron’s plan past Dean after all the horrible decisions he’s made in the past (Purgatory, Leviathan, Naomi) at least they were able to stop everything on Sam’s end before he died. Poor Castiel is so confused though and just wants to fix his mistakes so of course keeps making a bigger mess.

Dean, of course, goes off to help Castiel with Metatron’s plan leaving Sam to take care of Crowley alone. Sam who is having trouble walking and looks like death. In charge of the King of Hell. Yeah that sounds like a good idea.

While Dean and Cas are trying to figure out what they need to do Naomi (Amanda Tapping) tries to redeem herself by giving Dean and Cas a heads up that Metatron is lying and that Sam will die if he completes the trials (which really?? Of course Sam is going to die). Not that it saved her (although I don’t know that a spike to the brain would kill an angel so she might show up again next season).

It did allow Dean to stop Sam before he cured Crowley which would have ended in Sam’s death. My only grief here is that obviously Sam was going to die. I can’t believe that Dean just gave his “we got this ” speech now!

Now about that speech. It was what I have been waiting for all season. Dean finally told Sam how much he depends on him and how much he loves his little brother. Sam has always just wanted to be good enough to make Dean proud and Dean usually only expresses those feelings when Sam is dead (making it kind of hard for Sam to know about them). The feels in the last few minutes were overwhelming. I was crying and my heart hurt with love for the boys.

The episode ended with Crowley chained up begging for forgiveness, Sam collapsed and in really bad shape and all the angels cast down to earth stripped of their graces.

“Sacrifice” was about so many other sacrifices than the ones I expected. This whole season has really been about sacrifice. Sam sacrificed his dream of redeeming himself through the trials. I really felt his pain in giving up this dream and his confusion when Dean told him to stop before he died. He sacrificed his life with Amelia (Liane Balaban) that he had been able to carve out while Dean was in Purgatory.

Dean sacrificed control over the trials. He sacrificed his friendship with Benny (Ty Olsson) who I personally wanted to see more of. He sacrificed any normalcy years ago. Castiel sacrificed his grace. Well really it was stolen, but he lost it while trying to correct all his mistakes. Kevin (Osric Chau), who by the way is one of my favorite character ever, sacrificed his amazing, if albeit pressure filled, life. He lost his mother, his friends, his girlfriend and all chances of his Ivy League education.

“Sacrifice” was great and had all the things a season finale needs: love, pain, humor and a cliffhanger. There are so many things that were left unanswered that will hopefully be covered next season. Can Dean finish the exorcism on Crowley there by curing him, but not finishing the trial? Why didn’t Sam look for Dean while he was in Purgatory? Season 9 can’t get here soon enough. What are your thoughts or predictions?